Government Information in Canada/Information gouvernementale au Canada, Volume 3, number/numéro 3 (Winter/hiver 1996-7)
The Use Of The Internet By Municipal Governments:
Great Expectations?
1

Stephen Bent 2


Whereas the Internet has allowed the federal and provincial governments to realize significant improvements in the availability of public information they provide, municipal governments have not enjoyed the same dividends. With its accessibility and openness, the nature of local government is such that the Internet only complements the traditional means of information dissemination. However, local government must innovate and encourage deliberation of public issues via the Internet to improve public deliberation at the local level and advance Internet use to the next level.

L'Internet a permis aux gouvernements fédéral et provincial d'offrir une plus grande disponibilité de l'information publique qu'ils fournissent mais il n'en est pas de même pour les gouvernements municipals. Avec son accessibilité et sa franchise, la nature du gouvernement local est telle que l'Internet ne fait que compléter le moyen traditionnel de diffusion de l'information. Le gouvernement local doit innover et encourager la délibération des questions publiques par l'intermédiaire de l'Internet pour améliorer la délibération des questions publiques au niveau local et l'utilisation anticipée de l'Internet au prochain niveau.


The buzz of high technology is everywhere. The Internet, in particular, is seen as a major catalyst of change in the way we live. It affects the way we run our business, communicate with each other, educate our children and interact with our government. The list is so extensive that it is almost futile to attempt to determine the general impact of the Internet on our society. We can, however, examine specific examples of how the Internet has changed our lives, discuss some of the key issues and draw out some implications of the change.

Towards that end this essay will examine how our municipalities are utilizing the Internet to improve the "openness" of local government and to increase participation with constituents. I will begin with an overview of the nature of local government and then consider why many municipalities have moved to develop a presence on the Internet. I will then define some of the common characteristics of municipal Web sites across Canada. Finally, I will address a key question: "What impact, if any, will the use of the Internet have on the interaction between local governments and their constituents?" Openness and public consultation have been prevalent characteristics of local governments and the use of the Internet reinforces those traits. However, I conclude that certain factors have limited the extent to which the Internet has been used to promote and enhance deliberation between constituents and their local governments.

The Nature of Municipal Government

Municipal government in what is now Canada actually preceded our current federal and provincial governments. In British North America, townships and villages were established to deal with a variety of matters such as roads and security. Their functions were far fewer in number than they are today. Nonetheless, these local governments were much more accessible than the Parliament in London. Today, local governments continue to be more accessible to most people than their provincial or federal governments. Residents of the Ottawa-Carleton region have considerably more access to the federal government than residents of Sudbury or Thunder Bay. Residents in all three regions can, however, access their local governments with relatively the same amount of work.

Geographic proximity is not the only thing that makes municipal government more accessible. The nature of the mandate of municipal governments also forces them to be much more "open" than the provincial or federal government. Municipal governments deal with services that directly affect the average citizen. For example, most municipalities are responsible for road maintenance, police and fire protection, and sewage treatment. The federal government deals with more distant issues such as international trade, defence, human resource development, fisheries and oceans. These issues (in most cases) do not affect all citizens every day.

Since municipal governments deal with services that affect residents on a daily basis, residents demand access to their municipal officials when problems or needs arise. For example, if a street light burns out, a resident would telephone the municipality with an expectation that it would be fixed as soon as possible. If that same citizen telephones the Minister of Finance to discuss reform, she might not expect the same turn-around time.

Municipalities have adopted a number of procedures to assure the public of their accessibility and openess. First, most municipal council meetings are open to the public. Most provinces allow for only certain instances when councils can meet in private. In addition, most municipalities host a number of planning and community-related open houses or workshops every year. When compared to other levels of government, municipalities work harder to allow the public input into local decision-making.

Another method of ensuring municipal governments are accessible and approachable is through the provision of information. Many municipalities have policies that require that the agendas of meetings be finalized and published with sufficient time for public notification. At the municipality I work for, it is mandatory that agendas be made public at least one week before a meeting. Furthermore, many municipalities make copies of meeting agendas available in a variety of venues such as community centres, libraries and fire halls. My municipality also utilizes a voice messaging system through which residents can retrieve information on agenda items and committee meeting dates. Most listings also provide information on how to reach the staff person involved in an issue.

Suprisingly, given the various methods of ensuring the public has access to municipal governments, residents remain relatively uninvolved in local government issues. For the most part local council meetings go unattended, open houses have more staff attendees than members of the public, few people comment on municipal policies or actions, and voter turn-out in municipal elections is generally well below 50%. Why is public participation so low? Whatever the answer, many municipalities have looked to new ways to disseminate information to the public and provide even greater opportunity for comment and participation. The Internet is one of those ways.

 

The Use Of The Internet By Local Government

What might be some of the specific factors motivating municipal government to use of the Internet? The first motivating factor is the need to better accommodate residents in a changing society. Women are working in far greater numbers, many jobs required work outside a 9-to-5 workday and part-time work is much more common. As a result, fewer and fewer people have the time to travel to City Hall to meet with a staff person, attend a council meeting, or telephone their councillor during regular office hours. The Internet provides residents with more flexibility as to when they can retrieve information. Similarly, it provides a quick means to voice a concern with a councillor or to obtain a registration form for a particular program. Much like voice mail revolutionized offices in the 1980s, the use of the Internet provides more flexible access for residents.

A second reason for municipalities increasing their presence on the Internet is the growth of metropolitan areas. Reforms in most provinces to consolidate local government units, in addition to increasing urbanization, has resulted in more populous municipal governments of a larger geographic size. Thus, as with the federal and provincial governments, municipalities are being forced to find alternate places to disseminate information to residents, beyond traditional venues such as local libraries or City Hall. The regional government in my area is a perfect example. One of the biggest advantages of the regional government Web page is that residents in distant rural areas can view the agendas of a regional committee without making the one-hour drive to the regional hall.

Cost is the third reason for municipalities, as with other levels of government, to develop Internet sites. As municipalities take on more responsibilities handed down from senior levels of government, there is a need to provide a wider range of information to residents. Publishing information in paper form is an expensive undertaking. Use of the Internet allows municipal governments to provide detailed information in a paperless environment at a reduced cost.

A fourth factor driving municipalities to get online is the desire to promote public participation at the municipal level. Voters in Canada have traditionally paid very little attention to municipal elections or operations. The approximate turn-out in the last municipal election in my municipality was 35% of eligible electors. Furthermore, many of our council and committee meetings go unattended. However, residents do take notice after a municipality has done something unpopular no matter how great the opportunity to comment during the decision-making process. Through the Internet, municipalities have endeavoured to make residents aware of current issues and provide them with the information they need to participate constructively in the traditional decision-making process. The next section will examine the ways in which many municipal Web sites are structures to achieve this goal.

 

Characteristics of Municipal Web Pages

In evaluating municipal Web sites, I have found a number of recurring characteristics. Most of the Web sites I visited divide information into political, administrative, and community components. The political components provide biographic information on elected representatives, list committee memberships and organizational structures, and often contain agendas and minutes of committee meetings. For the most part these portions of the sites are well developed. Many elected municipal officials have endeavoured to provide substantial amounts of information on their pages in order to keep their constituents informed.

The administrative components provide information pertaining to departments and services. While most sites provide quick and easy access to department officials, there seems to be a reluctance to expand on information relating to the specific department. For example, one site provides a number to contact if a person wishes to apply for a building permit. However, no information is provided as to when you need a building permit or the cost involved.

The final components, for lack of a better classification, are the community-related components. Many of the Web sites provide links to various quasi- and non-governmental agencies and groups that serve the community. Furthermore, some sites provide information on community associations in different neighbourhoods.

The second recurring characteristic is an emphasis on economic development. As municipal governments are dependent on business and property taxes for revenue, they have a keen interest in economic development. Given the push towards high-tech industries, it would appear that many municipal governments have moved online in order to market themselves better. My municipality, for example, notes one of its major corporate residents on the front page of its Web site. The Web site of a neighbouring municipality declares that the municipality is "Where Businesses and Families Prosper."

The final recurring characteristic of many municipal Web sites is the consistent failure of municipalities to allow for online discussion amongst residents. Given that municipal governments have typically encouraged public participation, this characteristic must be examined closely.

 

The Failure of Municipal Government To Facilitate Online Discussion

Monica Gattinger maintains that there are three types of interaction local government can undertake through the use of the Internet. First, "broadcasting" involves local government disseminating information to citizens but does not provide the opportunity for direct public participation in policy formation. Second, "bilateral communication" occurs when citizens inquire or comment on issues and staff or politicians issue a response. There is no structured debate and no formal influence on policy. Third, "multi-directional communication" is communication between municipal governments and residents, and among citizens themselves on significant municipal issues.3

In my opinion, multi-directional communication is the most attractive use of the Internet. Facilitating and increasing discussion among residents and between residents and elected representatives encourages the participatory nature of municipal governments. In addition to the traditional venues for debate and discussion, the Internet should increasingly become an important component of grass-roots democracy and deliberation at the municipal level. However, failure to ensure universal access to the Internet prevents it from achieving the same level of deliberation and participation traditional public forums such as council meetings have enjoyed.

Many lack the ability or resources to access the Internet and thus are excluded from any discussions that occur on it. There are those who do and those who don't have access to the Internet. Furthermore, a majority of Internet users are males between eighteen and thirty.4 If local governments move to improve participation and deliberation through the Internet, some citizens would be disenfranchised. Important decisions might be made based on an inaccurate reflection of public opinion. Given that the goal of utilizing the Internet is to improve access to municipal government, it is obvious that this is not the intent. As Gordon Ross notes, excluding persons from debate or vote contradicts the notion of "one person, one vote"--the very essence of democracy.5

To be sure, some municipal governments have taken steps to address the issue of access for the purposes of broadcasting and bilateral communications. They have established public access terminals in libraries and community centres for those who do not own the equipment necessary to access the Internet. The municipal site administrators with whom I conversed consciously recognized that accessibility was a major issue. However, the provision of a small number of public access terminals does not adequately address the "have nots" and, as important, the "do nots." As long as a certain segment of the population has an advantage in the processing of information, the use of the Internet to enhance democracy at the local level will be flawed.

If accessibility and demography were not issues, use of the Internet could substantially improve the dissemination of information, discussion and decision making both online and off. Keay Davidson suggests that the use of email or chat lines actually improves the quality and equality of online democracy because people are less inhibited and less influenced by various aspects of physical appearance such as race or gender. Furthermore, any personal characteristics that might make a person a dominant public speaker are lost in the electronic media.6

Peggy Sun offers another interesting perspective. In her essay on social capital and the Internet, Sun notes that given the opportunity to access government information and contact public officials, people have generally gravitated towards electronic mail and discussion bulletin boards as opposed to staff-generated information pages. She suggests that these users may be "trying to build trust and develop common values and ideas of the public interest through informal, non-political associations."7 If this is so, broadcasting and bilateral communication will likely be less utilized if the public are given the opportunity to participate in multi-lateral communication through municipal government Web sites. Furthermore, developing common values is an integral part of building democratic values.

Should limited public access to the Internet discourage municipalities from using the Internet to engage the public in meaningful debate about policy problems? It is my opinion that municipal governments should encourage public participation in any way possible. However, utilization of the Internet must be done cognizant of the fact that the views extracted from it are not necessarily representative of the true community and should be judged accordingly. At this point in time, the major value of the Internet is that it is an additional method of disseminating information for use in the traditional public forum.

 

Why Haven't Municipalities Moved To Multi-Directional Communications?

I would suggest that there might be a variety of reasons why municipal governments have not provided for multi-directional communications. First, the cost of managing such a system might be beyond the resources of municipal governments. Establishing, monitoring, and processing newsgroups and other electronic discussion forums is very time-consuming. Given the diversity of operations managed by a municipality, there might be numerous discussion groups.

Another possibility is that municipal administrators and politicians are reluctant to allow direct public involvement in policy development and the day-to-day operations of the organization. In this instance, both politicians and administrators would argue that since they are the ones who will be held responsible for policy and operations, they should have the final say. If you accept that citizens elect politicians to govern for them and that they will direct the administration, there is some credence to this argument. However, if one believes what most municipalities profess to believe, then greater resident participation in municipal government is important to enhance democracy. I would still maintain that online deliberation and discussion on policy issues, if representative of the population, would be a positive development.

A third reason why municipal governments have not progressed to multi-directional discussion on the Internet is that municipal governments, relatively inexperienced users of the Internet, are not quite ready to utilize such discussion forums. In my opinion, this might be the case in some municipalities but is a relatively poor excuse for others.

A final reason might be that municipal administrators recognize that Internet users are not representative of the population, and thus have refrained from utilizing multi-directional discussion to form public opinion. This is likely one of the most important factors. It is well known that the Internet is predominantly used by men. Thus, to avoid bias or the perception of bias, municipalities may have shied away from multi-directional usage until such time that the Internet is equally used by all groups.

 

What Impact Will The Internet Have On The Interaction Between Municipalities And Their Constituents?

The demographics of Internet use, like many other things, are changing daily. I would suspect that soon most people will be online in some fashion. What overall impact will more pervasive use of the Internet have on the interaction between municipalities and their residents?

First, I believe that residents will be better informed. Regardless of whether it is administratively or politically driven, residents will get detailed information about issues of concern to them much more quickly than previously possible. Furthermore, it will "open" municipal governments that have perhaps grown beyond the scale appropriate for "local" government. Finally, one of the main motivators for municipalities to go online was the possible increase in public participation at the local level that might be realized. I would suggest that it will take time for these increases to appear.

 

Conclusion

The purpose of this study was to examine how municipalities are using the Internet to "open" local government. Traditionally, local government has, for the most part, been more open than other levels of government. Furthermore, increases in the size of local government have also necessitated re-evaluation of the ways in which municipalities provide information to the public. The opportunity to disseminate large volumes of information and to increase public access and public participation have been the forces driving municipalities to establish a presence on the Internet.

Municipal Web sites share some common characteristics, including the provision of information on elected officials, government departments, community associations and economic development information. All of the sites I examined, however, also had in common the failure to utilize the Internet to improve public participation and deliberation in the municipal system via the Internet. However, it is clear that the Internet has and will continue to have an important function in the relationship between residents and their municipal government. The public now has greater access to public documents, policy statements, and meeting information and can utilize this in the traditional ways. As more and more people move online, the idea of public discussion and deliberation via newsgroups and chat lines will become more acceptable. However, the fact that Internet users are not representative of the general population will keep municipalities away from utilization of this feature in the near future.


Notes

[1] May be cited as/On peut citer comme suit:

Bent, Stephen. "The Use Of The Internet By Municipal Governments: Great Expectations?," Government Information in Canada/Information gouvernementale au Canada 3, no. 3 (1996-7). [http://www.usask.ca/library/gic/v3n3/bent/bent.html]
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[2]

Stephen Bent
Elections Officer
City of Nepean, Ontario, Canada
tel: (613) 727-6700 ext. 223
sbent@ccs.carleton.ca
http://www.carleton.ca/~sbent

The author wishes to extend special thanks to Saul Schwartz for his guidance and encouragement.
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[3] Monica Gattinger, "Local Governments Online. How Are They Doing and What Does It Mean?" in Public Engagement: Lessons From Local Government, Ed. Susan D. Phillips and Katherine Graham (Toronto: IPAC, forthcoming).
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[4] Keay Davidson, "Liberté, Egalité, Interneté" in The New Scientist (May 27, 1995), 42.
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[5] Gordon Ross, "Government on the Net: Revolutionizing Democracy?" in Critical Mass [http://hoshi.cic.sfu.ca/~cm/issue5/whyweb.html].
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[6] Davidson, 27.
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[7] Peggy Sun, "Building social capital: A prerequisite underlying credible calls for universal access and electronic democracy" [http://www.carleton.ca/~psun/assn2.html].
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